I just had a farmer in my region who texted me, and he was wondering if he can install a heat pump on his grain dryer. I said, “No, no. You’ve got to use natural gas. There’s no way.”

When we’re talking about heat pumps in the northern region—even in my region in eastern Ontario, I’ve got a heat pump, but I’ve got a natural gas backup, and that’s the story about all rural municipalities in the northern area. If you want to use a heat pump, you’ve got to have a backup source. It has to be an electric duct heater, whatever. That’s the reality.

So how can you not understand the reality of rural Ontario? I know you’re living in Toronto, but you’ve got to understand the reality of rural Ontario.

The member from Humber River–Black Creek really spelled this out well. He talked about his constituent Tom.

This bill is going to give politicians the power to force consumers to pay costs that the Ontario Energy Board has ruled they shouldn’t have to pay. It doesn’t make any sense. This means the government is going to add the over $1 billion in cost to the gas bills of nearly four million consumers, each of them paying an average of $300 or more from their pocket.

You clearly talked about how the Conservative government is siding with billionaire corporations over regular people.

What is the precedent when a majority government interferes with an independent organization like the Ontario Energy Board to overrule news they don’t want to accept?

Next question.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

The member for London North Centre has given notice of dissatisfaction with the answer to a question given by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter, and somebody on the government side will have five minutes to reply.

The member for London North Centre.

Can’t we all just get along in in here?

Interjection: No.

Here’s the thing: I keep thinking about the future, 10, 15—2040—16 years from now. Way more people are going to switch to heat pumps, and then what’s going to happen is it’s going to drive up the cost for—

Interjections.

Number two is, I’m talking about the future, and they’re saying that you don’t care about rural customers—I don’t believe that. But why would they give the minister the powers that they are if they’re that worried about what it is you would do? Because it’s not just about what the minister is going to do next week; it’s about what a minister is going to do in 2035.

I was hearing you speak, and I spoke on this. We have a lot of constituents who are having a very hard time. I know everyone has lots and lots of constituents who are struggling right now to make ends meet and to be able to “mettre les deux bouts ensemble,” to be able to pay the bills.

Can you talk on your end about your constituency? I know you named a few—but can you talk about how difficult it is? If they have another $300 to $400 gas bill, how much are they going to struggle, and how much is it going to hurt them? I know if they do it in my riding, they’re going to hurt, and that may mean that they’ll lose where they’re going to be staying. So I’d like to hear from you on that.

It’s not often that we hear responses such as we did from this government. When I look at this speech, I was thinking about distinction without a difference. We’re here this evening because the government failed to answer the most simple of questions. In short, all I requested was an answer to a term that they have been using for the past 18 and some months. My question was: “What does the government mean when it says ‘attainable housing’?”

All of us in the space really should think back to our formative years in the education system. I swear everyone in this chamber would do well to remember standards of behaviour, decorum and manners, but that’s a different topic for a different time.

When asked to provide an answer, as a young person, if you tried too pull the wool over the teacher’s eyes, they would ask you again to try again and answer the question. I think of all the student groups who come and visit us here and the behaviour of government members blustering and backslapping, all while dodging the most simple accountability and transparency. That’s basically what we have here: A situation whereby the government refused to answer the question. They were given a second opportunity; they still refused to answer.

And here we are with their third chance. But quite frankly, Speaker, I’m not holding my breath. If I do end up hearing one, well, I’ll be quite surprised.

I also want to say, if it the government doesn’t know what it means when it says “attainable housing,” that’s okay, too—no harm, no foul—but be forthright, be upfront about it. Just admit that you don’t know what you’re saying when you say this—and it’s been going on for 18 months. You know, another thing your teacher probably told you in your formative years is that it is far easier to simply tell the truth.

Now, in terms of this question itself, I asked for the definition of “attainable housing” and the responses were bizarre. The responses did not at all address what I was asking. The Minister of Housing, the government House leader, mentioned the 21% increase in homelessness funding that’s coming through to London, and unfortunately indicated something that was contrary to the fact—that it was not something that I had asked for—when in actual point in fact, as I had the opportunity to point out, I had been asking for emergency homeless funding since I was elected.

Cities across Ontario should be evaluated based on rezonings and building permits issued rather than the number of new homes that are under construction or housing starts. Developers get shovels in the ground, not politicians. This government is talking all about—and we’ve seen this happen in Bill 134, the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act. They mention “attainable” once in that piece of legislation: “The Development Charges Act, 1997 includes provisions exempting affordable and attainable residential units from development charges.” You would think that when they have that word “attainable” and it’s part of a development charge removal that they would actually understand what “attainable” means. But unfortunately, that’s the only time it appears in it.

For the government’s benefit, I’d like to provide you with the definition of what “attainable” means. It’s an adjective for the verb “to reach, to achieve, to accomplish or to gain, to obtain.”

I also wanted to provide a little bit of background indicating that it was a PC Premier, Bill Davis, who also did really effectively bring in rent control, something this government is ideologically opposed to, and they want people to pay when they’re inhabiting a building after November 2018. There was a radio interview with the Premier on 640 Toronto, and he even admitted that they’re trying to work out what “attainable housing” is and that they’re working with stakeholders. They’ve been using the term for 18 months, and they still don’t know. “Attainable” is going to be a lower cost of a regular-priced home.

You know, Speaker, it’s kind of embarrassing that this government has been using this term, bandying it about, really having it as a carrot for the people of Ontario, when they don’t actually know what it means.

So Speaker, I’d like to ask the question of the government, what is “attainable” when people can’t even get into affordable housing? We have a crisis across this province with housing. I wish this government would stop using it as a shield for what they’re doing and actually address the cost of living crisis that we have here in Ontario.

Thank you for that excellent question.

It’s astounding that this government would choose constituents, existing energy customers, to have to pay increased costs in this affordability crisis instead of Enbridge, posting higher and higher profits—profit margins that are just through the roof. No, they want to pass that down.

And it’s just going to be so interesting to see government members, if they want to be fair and honest, explain, maybe in a newsletter, “Hey, your energy bill, your gas bill is going to go up, because Enbridge doesn’t want to pay out of its profits, and you know what? We always agree with the big guys making lots of money over the little guy.” I just can’t wait to see them explain that.

Actually, for the first part of that question, I’d like to quote the OEB report, as reported by theenergymix.com. The OEB looked at that, and they said, “The OEB is not satisfied that Enbridge Gas’s proposal will not lead to an overbuilt, underutilized gas system in the face of the energy transition”—this came from the board itself.

And theenergymix.com went on to say:

“That assumption points to a problem for future homeowners, who would be committed to paying installation costs to the utility over the full 40-year span. The decision to construct a new development with gas infrastructure would be the developer’s, but would saddle homeowners with the financial burden, even if some of them later decided to adopt some other heating option, like a heat pump.”

That is the rationale, in part, that the decision made by the OEB was based on. But of course, this government doesn’t like no—this government wants to do whatever it is, and this government will always say yes when big business says, “Help me instead of the little guy.”

Just stand up to Enbridge. Stand up to big business. Stand up for Enbridge customers and help them save costs on this. But you don’t want to do it, of course—of course not.

It’s lovely to rise this to rise this evening to address my colleague from London North Centre’s question. It’s also lovely to be able to address a question on housing in this House. Serving as PA to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who is also the government House leader, means I don’t have a lot of opportunities to do that—which is fine.

The member opposite mentioned the attainable housing in the bill he referred to. I also have access to Hansard, and I looked up, colleagues, before coming to this place how many times the member opposite has mentioned “attainable housing.” He mentioned it once, on February 22, 2024. Someone who claims to be so worried about attainable housing mentioned it once in this place, Speaker.

Interjection: Once.

Speaker, this member is part of a party that nominated someone in one of the fastest-growing communities in this country to stop development. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to continue to get shovels in the ground and ensure that we continue to build homes across Ontario, but especially in our transit corridors—of which downtown Kitchener is one. We’re going to continue to get homes built.

This member opposite’s colleague who ran in the Kitchener by-election voted against a 1,174-unit development in downtown Kitchener. She opposed a 10-storey, 132-unit condo development, and she voted against 532 residential units in downtown Kitchener. That is not all, Speaker: She also voted against a 238-unit development in downtown Kitchener.

I could continue, but I also want to address the fact that the member for Ottawa South is here this evening, and they just elected a new leader, one of the biggest NIMBYs in all of Ontario, where we actually saw people leave the city she was the mayor of. It shrank, when every other city in this province grew.

Interjection.

I can only hope that the new Liberal leader will see the error of her ways, but I’m not going to hold my breath. She called, for example, a 17-storey unit, 148 units in total, “way too much density.” This was in 2022 that the Liberal leader said this. She has commented saying we don’t want a “wall of condos,” and she called a proposed 12-storey, 195-unit development an “abomination.”

Interjection.

To respond, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The member for Waterloo.

Speaker, I’m very pleased to stand today. I want to thank the Attorney General for being here because I feel honoured that he’s here and that a minister’s here, so I really do appreciate it.

On auto: I do want to remind members on the other side that their party voted against the bailout in 2009, so I wouldn’t chirp too loud about anybody’s record on auto.

So, why are we here? Why am I here? Why are we here at the late, late, late show? Because the Premier, when asked about some appointments to the board that help us choose judges or help the minister choose judges, said that he wanted “like-minded people,” that he didn’t want Liberal or NDP judges. Well, just saying that is the wrong thing to do. Our courts are supposed to be independent. They need to be independent.

Look, I’m 100% opposed to the politicization of the courts. I think most people in here would be. I don’t want a Conservative judge, a New Democratic judge or a Liberal judge. I want independent, non-partisan judges who bring nothing more than and nothing less than good legal judgment to bear on the issues before them without fear or favour or loyalty to any political party or any political philosophy.

Let’s all be really honest here. For all of us, as politicians, it’s hard to inspire confidence in people. They don’t have confidence in us, and there’s no doubt that we all bear some responsibility in this. What the Premier is suggesting is infecting the courts with the same virus that now makes public trust in our elected representatives, in us, so weak. So bringing politics into our courts will inevitably mean the public will start to lose trust in the incredibly important work being done there. People will second-guess their judges for the same reason they second-guess all of us: because they can’t stand the politics.

It’s an incredibly bad and dumb idea to turn independent judges into judges who toe a political line or “think like us.” As a society, we can tolerate low levels in all of us here. We understand that. We kind of created that, right? But we can’t accept anything less than the highest levels of trust in our courts. I know that the Attorney General knows that, too. It’s one thing to lose confidence in politicians, but when people start to lose confidence in the courts, you start to slide towards anarchy. You don’t have to look very far south to see where that’s happening, and that was my point.

The right answer to the question would have been, “I appointed two people. They’re good people. They have good judgment. They are going to help us make good choices, so we’ll have good, independent, strong people on the bench.” That’s the right answer to the question. The Premier gave a political answer to the question, and that’s not good. It’s not good, because just uttering those sentences starts to undermine people’s confidence in the judicial system.

The other reason that the judicial system is important is that it underpins our democracy. It makes sure that when we make decisions here, we are doing them in accordance with the laws of Canada. And we also have a system where we actually look—and the Attorney General will know—at the judgments that judges make. We have systems of appeal. We have checks and balances. An independent judiciary is an incredibly important check and balance in democracy, and that’s the point I’m trying to make.

So the Premier has to do something to restore confidence in whatever he eroded by saying what he said. And look, with all the things that have gone on—with the secret sole-source deals; with the criminal investigation of the $8.3-billion backroom deal—for the leader whose government is subject to that criminal investigation to suggest that he wants like-minded judges, I don’t think that’s a really good look. I’m just saying.

To respond, the parliamentary assistant to the Premier.

The member for Ottawa South.

As Premier Ford’s parliamentary assistant, I’m pleased to respond. Since we took office in 2018, we have set out to restore Ontario’s reputation as a jurisdiction that is open for business.

After 15 years of a Liberal government, Ontario had lost its way. The Liberals took an economy that was once competitive and crippled it with high taxes and mountains of red tape. At every opportunity, they raised taxes and increased costs for businesses and the hard-working people of this province. Businesses packed up their bags and fled Ontario in droves, seeking out more competitive jurisdictions. So too did some of the brightest and most talented workers, who were being deprived of economic opportunities thanks to Liberals’ failed economic plan. When we heard from companies from across the globe who were looking at new places to invest and expand in, Ontario was not even a consideration for them. Simply put, Ontario wasn’t on the map.

When we got elected, we knew we had to reverse course, and that is exactly what we did. We lowered costs and created the conditions businesses need to succeed. Since 2018, our government has cut more than 500 pieces of red tape, saving businesses more than $939 million each year in gross compliance costs. As a result, we’ve seen new investments and good-paying jobs being created in every sector and every region of our province.

Look at the auto sector, for example. The Liberals watched as the sector stagnated because they didn’t believe Ontario’s more than 100,000 auto workers had what it took to compete in a global economy. But our government knew Ontario had everything it needed to be an auto-producing powerhouse, and that’s why, over the last three years, Ontario has secured more than $28 billion in new auto and EV investments, creating thousands of good-paying jobs across the province and setting our auto sector up for success in the years to come. Because of the actions we’ve taken, the cars of the future will be assembled and produced by Ontario workers.

Earlier this month, as a result of the important investments Ontario has secured, Bloomberg announced that Canada ranked first in their annual global battery supply chain rankings. This is the first time China has not claimed the number one spot since the ranking started.

Unfortunately, the Liberals were happy to watch auto and manufacturing jobs leave Ontario and relocate in foreign jurisdictions. They hollowed out our manufacturing base and chased 300,000 manufacturing jobs out of the province. In contrast, we’re restoring Ontario’s manufacturing might, reassuring manufacturing jobs and building things in our province again.

Just last year, Ontario’s economy added more manufacturing jobs than all 50 states combined. In our tech sector, we’ve seen tens of billions of dollars in investments flood into our province. More than 100,000 good-paying tech jobs have been created since we took office.

In our life sciences sector, we’ve secured over $3 billion in new investments over the last three years. Ontario is now the largest life sciences sector in Canada with over 2,000 firms that employ more than 72,000 people.

The Liberals and the NDP want us to stop promoting Ontario as the destination of choice and close our doors to businesses and good-paying jobs. I can assure you tonight, Speaker, that we will never turn our backs on Ontario businesses and workers. We will never go back to the Liberal days of watching on as jobs and businesses fled the province. In 2023, more than 180,000 good-paying jobs were created across the province, and this is just the start.

To companies looking to invest and expand our message is clear: There is no better place to be than Ontario. We’ll continue to create the conditions for businesses to succeed and promote our province as the best place to do business, so that we can continue together attracting more jobs, creating investments in every region of our great province.

The Attorney General to respond.

The House adjourned at 1828.

I’m pleased to be able to join this debate and have a conversation.

I was listening to my colleague intently, and he was saying that just saying it is the wrong thing to do. I think what he meant to say was that hearing it is uncomfortable. Confidence-building doesn’t mean doing things in the shadows and assuming that the public can’t handle the truth; the truth of the matter is, governments are elected to make decisions to appoint judges, and that’s a fundamental part of democracy.

Now, the opposition and some in the bar are throwing around judicial independence—as if this has anything to do with judicial independence. The way that this works is, the Chief Justice sends a letter and says, “We have a vacancy to fill.” The letter is passed on to the committee, made up of up to 13 people, including a quarter of them as judges, some from the bar and some from the public. As my colleague suggested, they’re excellent, excellent people. They donate their time for this, and they have over time, over the decades. They make recommendations, and those recommendations come to the Attorney General to consider, to make a recommendation to cabinet. Then they’re appointed, and then they get their independence. They don’t come to the committee with independence, and they don’t come to the committee with some sort of sanctified neutrality. It’s a human system, and people come with world views.

I have been clear publicly: I want judges who understand victims. I want judges with community service. I want to make sure that they understand communities. Now, I don’t think anybody is taking issue with that, but when the Premier says out loud what has been happening for decades, all of a sudden there’s outrage, and somehow we’ve crossed the lexicon into judicial independence.

Let me be really clear: If we’re going to talk about actual facts, if we go back to that period between January 1989 and February 1995, the appointments when the Liberals and then the NDP were reigning—they appointed 71 criminal defence and civil rights lawyers to the bench, and 17 crown attorneys. Now, that’s not casting aspersions or anything on the individuals—but they may have a world view, and that’s okay.

It’s curious to me, in 2014, I mentioned this morning, after three years—from 2011, 2012, 2013; 12 judges, 10 judges, 12 judges—all of a sudden, in an election year, the Liberals appointed 27 judges. And that’s okay. But then in 2015, they appointed 13 more; in 2016, 17 more; and right before the next election they appointed 47. I actually didn’t know the political background of any of them, because that’s not how I evaluate people. But I took the opportunity today to run those 47 through some of the publicly available databases, and you may or may not be shocked to know that 40% of them appear to be Liberal and some NDP donors. You may also be shocked to know that it doesn’t appear that any of them donated to a Conservative. Does that make them unfit judges? Absolutely not. It is the prerogative of the government of the day to appoint qualified judges—that’s the measure: Are they qualified?—not through this false lens of, “Did they go to a fundraising dinner for somebody one time?” That’s not the measure.

When you appoint a judge, it’s very much like pulling back the arrow, and when you let go of the arrow you have no control anymore; it goes where it goes. When that judge puts on that sash, they have their independence. There is no kowtowing to a government of any stripe, and I can tell you that any lawyer who operates in the courts will verify that. If you think that a judge is kowtowing to any party—the one that appointed them that’s not in power now or the one that is in power—that just does not happen. That is a fallacy.

So this is all a bit of a storm about nothing, because the system is the gold standard. Can it be improved? There are ways we can improve it. But is it better than other systems in Canada? I would argue it’s the best, and we have qualified people who are donating their time to sit on that committee and give us their advice, along with the judges and the others. I want that system to continue. I respect that system, and I look forward to more advice from them. We will appoint qualified people to make sure that the people of Ontario receive the kind of justice they expect.